[meteorite-list] The Missing Word

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Oct 1 03:46:25 2006
Message-ID: <006d01c6e52d$a71e55f0$9a7dd745_at_ATARIENGINE>

OK,

    Didn't say I believed it, just that "it was reported."
You'll note the software in question is derived from
software "that allows disabled people to communicate
through computers using their nerve impulses." Maybe
Neil's nerves said it, but his mouth didn't? Armstrong
says he finds the study "persuasive." Still touchy after
all these years.

    In one of your references there is mention of the
reporters listening to the raw feed and not being able
to tell if the "a" was there or not. I have a recording
of the "raw feed" released by Life magazine only a
week after they made it back. I just went and listened
to it about six times (first time in decades). It does not
sound much like the two "official" sound samples
linked in those articles, which have obviously been
smoothed and filtered, "scrubbed," as it were, with a
strong but uniform background hum. The raw feed
has much irregular noise, although the timing of the
words seems to be the same.

    Not to go all conspiracy theory on you -- I don't
think it matters. Afterall, if the important thing about
the first landing on the Moon was nailing your lines,
we'd have sent Orson Welles, right? Or at least
Charlton Heston...

    Maybe nailing the landing was more important,
particularly since their predetermined flight path was
heading them straight into a 100-meter crater filled with
rubble and surrounded by car-sized boulders, so that,
against all expectation, Armstrong had to go manual and
cruise around looking for the only 50-meter flat spot
in the area...

    Which he found and parked in, within 20 seconds (or
less) of fuel from the abort limit. Asked about that, he
reportedly said, "Twenty seconds is a long time."

    How about this? I recommend that when the first man
sets foot on Mars, he carries an iPod with his well-rehearsed
and pre-recorded foot-down sentence, so that all he has
to do is touch the button that feeds the quote directly into
his spacesuit's radio input: "That's one small step for a man,
another giant leap for mankind."

    Too late to get Charlton Heston to do it...


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse_at_charter.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] The Missing Word


On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 00:17:27 -0500, you wrote:

>
> An AP wire story says an Australian computer programmer
>using specialized sound software has analyzed the tape of Neil
>Armstrong's famous phrase when first setting foot on the Moon
>and determined that Armstrong said (and NASA received) the
>missing "a" in "That's one small step for [a] man..." even though
>it's not audible to most listeners...

I don't buy it. Listen for yourself-- there is no gap, no pause, and no
unusual
static between "for" and "man". It goes smoothly from one word to the next.

http://www.nasa.gov/62284main_onesmall2.wav

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/onesmall.asp
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Received on Sun 01 Oct 2006 03:46:05 AM PDT